Car insurance woes

mikey72

Only if they drive with your permission.

And you can't give permission as you're not the owner, so the insurer cannot persue the previous owner.

vaio

s151(8) wording is...

Where an insurer becomes liable under this section to pay an amount in respect of a liability of a person who is not insured by a policy or whose liability is not covered by a security, he is entitled to recover the amount from that person or from any person who—

(a)is insured by the policy, or whose liability is covered by the security, by the terms of which the liability would be covered if the policy insured all persons or, as the case may be, the security covered the liability of all persons, and

(b)caused or permitted the use of the vehicle which gave rise to the liability.

so you handing over the keys and waving off the buyer doesn't count as "caused or permitted"? That's an interesting argument (but on one I'd like to bet my house on)

In a wider note and even assuming you are right about causing or permitting, if you fail to cancel your policy on a car you’ve sold and as a result your insurer gets hit with a large s151 claim I’d say you can be pretty sure they are going to come after you for the money as losses occasioned as a result of your breach of the insurance contract.

Edited to add: A Cornhill policy I have to hand has a condition: If the law of any country in which this policy covers you say we must pay a claim which we would not normally have paid, we are entitled to ask you for these payments.

mikey72

vaio wrote: »

s151(8) wording is...

Where an insurer becomes liable under this section to pay an amount in respect of a liability of a person who is not insured by a policy or whose liability is not covered by a security, he is entitled to recover the amount from that person or from any person who—

(a)is insured by the policy, or whose liability is covered by the security, by the terms of which the liability would be covered if the policy insured all persons or, as the case may be, the security covered the liability of all persons, and

(b)caused or permitted the use of the vehicle which gave rise to the liability.

so you handing over the keys and waving off the buyer doesn't count as "caused or permitted"? That's an interesting argument (but on one I'd like to bet my house on)

In a wider note and even assuming you are right about causing or permitting, if you fail to cancel your policy on a car you’ve sold and as a result your insurer gets hit with a large s151 claim I’d say you can be pretty sure they are going to come after you for the money as losses occasioned as a result of your breach of the insurance contract.

Edited to add: A Cornhill policy I have to hand has a condition: If the law of any country in which this policy covers you say we must pay a claim which we would not normally have paid, we are entitled to ask you for these payments.

No. it's not my car any more. It's not my property.
I won't try to stop any drunk driver I see driving past me, I won't try to stop a speeding motorist. I won't police other motorist's. They aren't driving my car either. Once it's no longer mine, I won't be chasing any one else down the road.
If someone else is uninsured on their car, it's not my policy that will pay. My policy covers my car.
I didn't "cause or permit", the current owner did that.

If I sell my house, pay off the mortgage, and move into a new one, if I forget to cancel the insurance on the old one, will the insurer pay me out if the new owners burn it down a few months later?
Will I then have to pass the money over to the new owners?

vaio

mikey72 wrote: »

No. it's not my car any more. It's not my property.
I won't try to stop any drunk driver I see driving past me, I won't try to stop a speeding motorist. I won't police other motorist's. They aren't driving my car either. Once it's no longer mine, I won't be chasing any one else down the road.
If someone else is uninsured on their car, it's not my policy that will pay. My policy covers my car.
I didn't "cause or permit", the current owner did that.

mikey, read s151, it's clear and if any car is driven by an uninsured driver then the policy on the car is liable for third party damages. The liability isn't affected by "how" the car came to be driven uninsured. Although the "how" might affect whether the costs are recoverable from the policy holder

mikey72 wrote: »

......If I sell my house, pay off the mortgage, and move into a new one, if I forget to cancel the insurance on the old one, will the insurer pay me out if the new owners burn it down a few months later?
Will I then have to pass the money over to the new owners?

Nope, but then houses aren't subject to the RTA and in any event s151 only covers third party liabilities and not damage to the insured car (house)